The Songs of Scotland Chronologically Arranged. Edited, with Introduction and
Notes, by Peter Ross. Third edition. (Gardner.) —The Ballad-Minstrelsy of Scotland, Romantic and Historical, Col- lated and annotated. New and revised edition. (Same publisher.) —These two handsomely furnished volumes, being new editions, call only for brief notice. The Ballad-Minstrelsy will delight the general reader, and is likely to satisfy the student. The anony- mous editor writes like a master of hi 3 subject, and is not content with presenting an abundant mass of information on ballad. literature, but directs his readers to other sources of knowledge. It is almost needless to say that be ex,dodes Dr. Robert Chambers's absurd theory as to the modern origin of many of the most interesting of the Scottish bal'a Is ; and his annotations, though often copious, are always instructive and rich in literary flavour. The Songs of Scotland is the reprint of a volume published, without the editor's name, more than two years ago. It appears, so far as we have tested it, to be an exact reissue of that edition ; but, as it is said to be revised, it is probable that verbal errors aro corrected. The book affords a striking illustration of the wealth of song produced by Scotland at a period when in England our poets and vorsemen had lost the art of singing. Scottish song had been heard long before Allan Ramsay, who was Pope's senior by two years ; but through the whole of the eighteenth century, the prose-age of England, there was a succession of songsters north of the Tweed. The amazing genius of Burns is apt to make Englishmen forget that, although his notes are incom- parably the sweetest, he was but one singer among many in a land of song.
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